Terry Mattingly has always been a fan of Harry Potter and has had lots to say about the books. His latest article (not on the web as of this post) talks about rumored endings of the next book, and I thought it was very interesting. I’ll quote here:

The faithful have been sweating ever since Jim Dale, the voice behind the U.S. audio-book editions, claimed that the author had told him Harry would die. Then Rowling stunned British television viewers by revealing that she had tweaked the finale (the last word is "scar") so that "one character got a reprieve, but two die that I didn’t intend to die." And Harry Potter? She answered, "I can completely understand the mentality of an author who thinks, ‘I’m going to kill him off because after I’m dead and gone they won’t be able to bring back the character.’ "

Podcasting guru Emerson Spartz of MuggleNet.com spoke for millions when he said he couldn’t believe that Rowling would build her series around a "kid whose life sucks and then he dies."

There are a whole bunch of interesting things in there, but what interested me most is that apparently the book is done, and I’ll be able to read it before Molly.